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Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Strong performances across the board
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
Another year, another stellar performance by America’s nuclear plants. We’ve come to expect high capacity factors, and it’s a credit to the men and women of the profession. They’ve made routine something that was unimaginable not so long ago.
The decadal challenge for the nuclear enterprise now is to maintain this high level of operational excellence for the current fleet, while at the same time ushering in a new generation of technologies at scale. It will be a big job—but one that seems more and more likely with each passing day.
J.K. Garner, C.F. Carson, J.D. Gordon, R.H. Whitley
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 615-618
Blanket Design and Evaluation | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24811
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes a concept for a high performance, inherently safe fusion reactor blanket using helium coolant, beryllium multiplier, lithium breeder and a vanadium alloy structure. The goals of the design were to explore the possibility of inherent tolerance to loss of coolant and flow accidents while minimizing the cost of electricity. Results indicate high net thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency (45.5%), good energy multiplication (1.64) and excellent afterheat tolerance, with a maximum blanket temperature of 760°C after one year with no cooling. However, the calculated COE (0.0405$/kWe.h) is slightly higher than other blankets costed on a similar basis by the MINIMARS1 program because of the projected high cost of vanadium.